It was a Thursday afternoon, and Kevin knew he only had a couple of hours left before getting ready for dinner. And although he was looking forward to seeing his friends again, he also felt the pressure of a full schedule. He wanted to finish that new report and had planned on reading several articles, before meeting with me for a coaching session. The only way he could pull that off would be if he skipped his afternoon workout, something I had advised him to take up earlier.
Importance of exercise
My advice to Kevin to work a little less and to work out more first seemed counterintuitive to him. I suggested it, not just because he was spending most of his time sitting behind his computer.
Thankfully, these days, more and more information is available about the effects of living a sedentary life. Office life is becoming known as a killer lifestyle, increasing the risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and even cancer. But that is not the only reason why I am pushing my clients to pursue a more healthy one.
Exercising more not only improves your health, it’s also very good for your brain! Simply put, if you want to increase your productivity, you should increase your exercise. Various studies have shown how cardiovascular activity improves executive function, focus, and memory. In other words: instead of keeping yourself locked to your desk, you should get up and move.
The downside of motivation
The problem is that pulling yourself away from work is one of the hardest things to do, especially if you are ambitious and driven. It’s not just because of the deadline you need to meet or because you’re afraid to disappoint the boss or your team. In my work, I found that it’s primarily intrinsic motivation that keeps people from doing the right thing here. They love what they do, and because of that, they find it hard to let go and do something else. Even if that something will help them achieve their goals faster.
For some, it’s about being soaked up and oblivious to all the other things that should be done. Sometimes even stuff like eating and sleeping gets ignored. I have been there, ignoring my growling stomach while working on something exciting and fun.
For others, it’s more a sense of duty that gets in the way. Despite rationally knowing that working out will help them in such a way, they haven’t internalized it yet. It feels like a set of conflicting interests. You can’t work out if you want to get your work done.
Choices that affect your performance
And sometimes, that is true. If you are hours away from a deadline, you might not make it in time if you also spend an hour in the gym. But in all other situations, prioritizing that workout over work would be the right choice because it will save you time in the long run. Having a sharper mind will help you make better decisions, prevent mistakes, and simply go faster.
‘In the long run’ is the key phrase here. We are known for our inability to focus on long-term rewards, as numerous scientists in the field of behavioral economics have proven. The lure of instant gratification is simply a lot stronger than the promise of faster and better somewhere in the future. It’s one of the reasons why changing your habits is such a challenge. And why we constantly struggle to set the right priorities.
But when I logged in to the call that afternoon, I was happy to find that Kevin had made the right choice. Despite the short-term advantages of staying behind his desk, he was able to keep his eye on the bigger goal. The fact that he wasn’t on a fixed deadline of course helped. But the main reason was that he was starting to see more and more how his work attitude affected his performance. And that he had a choice in what that effect would be: positive or negative.
So when he finally turned on his camera, I saw a panting Kevin, dressed in a green t-shirt with dark, wet circles at his armpits and pearls of sweat dripping off his face. In the background, I could make out the home trainer in his living room, that dubbed as his home office, and at that time also as a gym. It was clear that getting a shower and cleaning up his equipment hadn’t been a priority. And he was right about that too.